Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Yesterday Mumbai High Court delivered a judgement on VAT to be Payable by the builders. Therefore no relief to the builders for which the case was in court.

I have been observing since last few years, every court and consumer body are delivering judgement against the builder or builder body MCHI. There is a news about some or the other cheating by builders more often. Press is full of negative news about the builder community.

In such a scenario what is the role of MCHI or CREDAI? I haven't seen any advertisement in the press by MCHI other than their regular exhibition 3/4 times a year. That are the only times they are seen in the press. That's it.

What financial market regulator SEBI does? They are out in the press many a times during the year to educate and make investors aware about the market. They are concerned about the fraudulent companies and think that investors should not be fooled or looted by these companies and there fore education and awareness. These kind of initiatives build perception.

Rajat Gupta of ex Mckinsey got support letter from 400 top notch people of the world and his sentence was reduced substantially by the judge. It was only token sentence of Jail. His good work and his perception about otherwise individual conduct had an impact on the judge and it saved him from rigorous punishment.

Therefore if one wants to be seen and heard from the heart , perception in the market plays significant role. The way good perception helps to reduce the gravity , bad perception will act negatively.

MCHI talks about their consumer grievances cell. Why don't they publish data on how many complaints they received and how many issues were resolved? Why don't they come out in press periodically to make consumer aware about bad practices in the industries and dos and donts while buying home or dealing with builders? No concerns for consumers and only time to go to press is when they want to sale their products. This will not work.

Bad perception is being created by some of their members by their conduct and no effort to create good perception effort by some aggressive proactive action , how can you win trust of consumers, authorities and even courts?

Food for thought for MCHI to ACT and ACT proactively for the betterment of consumers at large and not only for the benefit of their members. Rajat Gupta and MCHI both are impacted by their perception - one positively and one negatively.